Connecticut western news., 1887-08-03

struck the young girls memory, and for getting to answer him, she looked at him .doubtfully, while rosy blush swept over her forehead. She half knew him and half did not.
 Twill you let me look at your card?" he pursued, as with perfect courtesy in his voice and manner he took the bit of gilt and enamelled pasteboard, which she had tucked away amid the roses at her wrist.
 I-I half promised this dance to Robert" she stammered, finging quick glance over her shoulder into the sway ing crowd.
 ''Then shall claim it,' answered the other Robert, with an audacious smile.
 At that moment she recognized him as the man at her window the night before, and her face flashed angrily. "You shall never dance with me-" she said, darting away from him. ''I hate you!' Robert Edbury watched her disappear with smile on his lips, knowing too we'll the girl was attracted to him.
 He called on her the next day at the farm house. He began to see that he was very much in love with her and must win her. Finally one evening when he asked her to be his wife she shook her head. 'I am pledged to marry Robert Stoncr, my cousin, and I dare not break it. He is now suffer- ing from dangerous heart trouble, and this would kill him."
 "And you would sacrifice yourself for him, when you know in your own heart that you love me-" ,
 As they stood by the open window a before either could rush out Robert Stoner stood in the doorway.
 It was figure never to be forgotten. His handsome face was distorted with either pain or anger, his pale lips trem- bled, his left hand was pressed, with the old familiar gesture, upon his heart.
 '.Falsc, false that you are!' broke at length from his bloodless lips, as he seized Jessie with his right hand. "You told me you did not care for Robert Ed bury! You told me'-
 A pause, stagger, and with fright full shiver he fell on the carpet. Robert Edbury broke the fall partially, but was not quick enough to quite save him from it.
 On the floor, there as he lay, his head raised on cushion by the hands of Robert Edbury, he died The medical men said he could not, in any case, have lived many months, if weeks, but that the agitation had killed him.
 It was many long days after that, when she had risen from the sick bed to which this shock of sudden death had brought her, that Robert Edbury came to say farewell to Miss Chassdane
 The interview was brief, studiedly brief, for with the shadow of that dead man lying between them, speech was difficult to both.
 "Good-bye!' she cried, reaching out to him an attenuated hand. 1T hope you may find happiness and peacew
 "But we shall meet again. cried Robert, eagerly. ''Surcly-surely- some time in the near future may como to you"
 "Hush!" she cried, tears rolling pitc- ously down her cheeks. "You must not speak of that. Roberts shadow would always come between US, as he fell on the floor We killed him! We killed him"' and she wrung her pale hands to- gether in strong excitement.
 So he kissed her hand and said "Fare- well!" But he left whisper behind him.
 ''When the roses bloom again, remem- Der me!'
 A year went by and no message came. The second year he said to himself, "Surely she will send for me nowr' But May and June crept by and July came, but not one word came from Jessie Chassdane. He was growing sick with a wild and helpless despair, for he felt how worse than useless it would be to % uncalled, when one day a letter came futtering like a white bird to his heart
 ''The roses are in bloom and there is one for !"-[ New York Journal. |